The data and biostatistics core will be responsible for providing data management, information technology and biostatistical support to the research investigators of the proposed Tropical Medicine Center. Specifically, they will ensure data integrity and confidentiality for the three projects proposed, and will perform all data analyses related to these projects. This core has extensive experience conducting sophisticated analyses related to many different epidemiological studies with varying methodology. Furthermore, they are experienced in capacity building and one component of this Center will be local capacity building, specifically related to data entry, data cleaning and data analysis. The Core Head (Rahme), and two Key Personnel (Casapia and Gyorkos) are all University Profesors that teach in Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. The remainder of the core is also qualified for capacity building. The highly qualified data and biostatistics core that we propose will be an essential component to the success of this Center. It will be crucial in generating the results ofthe three research projects and filling the current research gaps.